Hello, I was wondering if there was going to be cutscenes in the game, if so, a lot or not?
Also, I’m not talking about the talking at the beginning of each round like the new XCOM have grown fond of. I can’t talk for everybody but everyone that I know that played the game (including myself) didn’t really like this type of method to tell information because you never know if you missed one and also it’s hard to concentrate on that and not only the mission. Also, I’m not going to wait around, not killing the last enemy, because I’m I don’t want to miss one line of dialog.
I’m sorry if it was already asked, I explored the forums multiple times, though maybe not that much in depth (so I might’ve missed it). Anyway, thanks for reading and maybe answering my question! (Sorry if there were errors in my text)
I think you mean the cinematic introduction of enemy pods - well, there are no pods in PP, so no, I don’t think there is even such thing as activation (didn’t play the beta so I am no 100% sure on the mechanics).
As to actual, story cuscenes, I doubt there is much (intro/outros?), I expect storytelling to be delivered in less expensive way. I am always up for live action cutscenes though
I don’t know if anything was reveal regarding it. My hope is, that there won’t be a per-say storyline - I dislike this element of Firaxis XCOM and believe that it doesn’t really gel well with this type of game, and PP is supposed to be more sandboxy then XCOM1&2.
Research and item discription are good ways on injecting story/lore/character without interfering with the game flow.
I think the faction leaders are supposed to be voiceacted and you will be ably to ally with them and combat alien thread with they ideologies, so a big chunk of storytelling might be done via interactions with them.
To be honest PP had some excellent trailers, so maybe they will put some budget into few cutscenes.
I really hope that there won’t be cut scenes, there’s far better ways to spend development money imho. For those that do appear, I’d much rather experience them as part of the global story telling elements of the game as opposed to during tactical missions.
Do you still want a kind of a story frame? With like an endgame mission to eradicate the virus or something like that? Maybe even escaping to space…
Because, I don’t know for you but if we play the game but it has no other objective other than just survive for as long as you can, can get pretty dull fast.
Yeah that’s what I was saying in the beginning, because I really hate to concentrate on multiple things on a mission (story and the position of the enemies at the same time).
Also, I hope that there will be a few cutscenes because it can really help set the mood and/or make you feel like you are there. Plus, they got extra money from Epic so they could invest some money into cutscenes.
I suppose there will be an intro and outro. Maybe one or two cutscenes showing something significant happening on the globe. But nothing more than that. Definitely not the cutscenes during the missions.
Before the Epic Deal, there were no plans to include cutscenes. They are way too expensive, and as a final thought the game just didn’t need them. I specially agree with this last one, put a single beautiful painted image with an epic voice over, and you have all the story development you need.
It’s difficult to say what I want, without knowing much about strategic layer. Strategies offer compelling experience by giving players one or more winning conditions. Original X-COM had simply couple mandatory research projects and the end mission. I think the more complex the strategy layer the more flexible and basic the “story” needs to be to accommodate how players progress through research and exploration.
Cutscenes given in reasonable portions would help with setting the mood so I’m curious why some of you are so much against it. The sense of direction is sometimes needed, we are not at 90’s anymore. I wouldn’t even complain on some short cutscenes presenting new type of alien (just once a game for each type, that is).
Even soldiers’ comments on current situations during firefights/exploration would be cool for narrative purpose.
What I quite like in Xcom 2 was Shen’s speaking in base: it helped with immersion but we actually could turn it off, so it wasn’t essential at all. I’m just saying not only cutscenes but also some voice-overs could do the thing.
It all depends if the game is designed to be played through once or replayed multiple times. If PP is a game which expects you/and is designed around being played over and over again, then things like static storytelling goes against it - you put resources into something which will loose appeal on consequent playthroughts.
And it’s not case of 90s design: paradox strategies, Civilization and the replayable procedurally generated games tend to use sparse storytelling or player generated storytelling.
I say Xcom1&2 are good examples on how not to do it: already fairly straightforward strategic layer is limited even further by static story objectives - what could be exciting events (base ambush, alien base/facility attack) get stale when you know when they are coming. Base chatter is done very well in Xcom1, it’s annoying in Xcom2 as they don’t have much to say and keep making stupid jokes (advent burgers facepalm). Well, writing in XCOMs isn’t exactly great, and while it is enough to support an easy premise of xcom1, they don’t manage to do convincing world building to make XCOm2 work setting wise.
I am sure there is a way to inject lore and character into the Phoenix Point while supporting the game it’s trying to be. If Snapshot is interested and has resources to explore that I will be interested to see what they come up with. I just don’t see cinematic story be particularly beneficial to the game, maybe beside into/outro.
Yeah, good voices are something which I had suggested, too. I just would like to see the world of phoenix point alive, you know, and some lively reactions of our soldiers, their acknowledges, among the other things, could actually help with this. @Wormerine, now I see your point of view and agree. Now I understand that too much dive in story-driving wouldn’t help with replayability.
